It may have been written by the celebrated divine, Thomas Jackson, of
Corpus-Christi College, whose discourse comparing the visible world to a
"Devil's Chess-board" evidently suggested the familiar etching in which
Satan contends with a youth for his soul. The lines are entitled:
THE PAWNE.
"A lowly one I saw,
With aim fist high:
Ne to the righte,
Ne to the lefte
Veering, he marched by his Lawe,
The crested Knyghte passed by,
And haughty surplice-vest,
As onward toward his heste
With patient step he prest,
Soothfaste his eye:
Now, lo! the last doore yieldeth,
His hand a sceptre wieldeth,
A crowne his forehead shieldeth!
"So 'mergeth the true-hearted,
With aim fixt high,
From place obscure and lowly:
Veereth he nought;
His work he wroughte.
How many loyall paths be trod,
Soe many royall Crownes hath God!"
It is very clear that the pawns in chess represent the common soldiers in
battle. The Germans call them "peasants" (_Bauern_); the Hindoos call them
_Baul_, or "powers" (in the sense of _force_); and that each of these, if
he can pursue his file to its end, should win a crown has always given to
this game a popular stamp. These pawns are doubtless, next to knights, the
most interesting pieces on the board: Philidor called them "the soul of
chess."
At an early period Asiatic chess was divided into two branches,--known
amongst players as Chinese and Indian. They are different games in many
respects, and yet enough alike to show that they were at some period the
same.
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